Tyshida Williams, a 31-year-old Black/African American woman and special police officer, had her life cut short in Washington, D.C., on the morning of July 30, 2023. At approximately 8:57 a.m., police were dispatched to an apartment on South Capitol Street, Southwest, for a report of a suicide. They arrived to find Williams with a critical gunshot wound.
Emergency responders transported her to a local hospital, but all lifesaving efforts were unsuccessful, and she was pronounced dead.
While the initial call was for a suicide, the evidence at the scene and the events leading up to the shooting pointed to a violent crime. The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner soon ruled Williams’s death a homicide. Inside the apartment, officers found her partner, Pernell Sims, behaving hysterically amid a grim scene that included a trail of blood, bloody clothing, and a Glock handgun on a bed. An investigation uncovered surveillance footage from the building’s parking garage, recorded just before the shooting, which showed a lengthy argument over Williams's cell phone. In the video, Sims grabbed Williams by her hair, threw her to the ground, and kicked her in the chest. The couple then went back inside the apartment, where Sims's child was present, and he fatally shot Williams in the head.
The investigation focused on Pernell Sims, who had a history of domestic violence prosecutions dating back to 2013. Family members of Williams described Sims as having a "hot temper" and reported that he tormented them online after her death by falsely insisting she had committed suicide. On October 30, 2023, pursuant to a D.C. Superior Court arrest warrant, law enforcement arrested Sims. He was charged with second-degree murder while armed in connection with Tyshida Williams's death.
In January 2026, Pernell Sims pleaded guilty to second-degree murder while armed. As part of his plea, Sims admitted that he was not acting in self-defense when he shot Williams. The case concluded in March 2026, when he was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
